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Expert approaches and insights for localizing your global elearning courses

By Acclaro

In the past five years, there has been tremendous growth and investment in elearning across businesses due to the 2020 pandemic and the need to work and learn from home. According to Thrive My Way, 77% of US corporations used online education for employees in 2017, but by 2020, 98% had incorporated it into their learning programs.

And online training deeply improves bottom lines:

Greater revenue and profitability: 42% of US organizations attribute an increase in income to elearning. Out of 2,500 companies surveyed, those with “comprehensive training programs” reported 218% higher revenue per team member and 24% higher profit margins.
Increased employee retention rates: Organizations report increased employee retention rates of 25% to 60% when elearning is available.

Companies with a multinational workforce recognize the importance of providing elearning solutions that cater to their employees’ diverse linguistic and cultural needs so that they can gain these bottom-line benefits across their organization. eLearning content localization is a crucial step in this process, ensuring that online training modules are translated and culturally adapted to resonate with learners from different regions.

eLearning localization involves more than just replacing words – it requires understanding local nuances, customs, and regulatory requirements.

In this post, we uncover the key drivers behind the growth of global elearning and explore how to make training accessible to your global employees by leveraging localization.

Why is localizing your elearning important?

Localizing elearning content has many benefits, including improving accessibility and boosting retention of learned concepts.

Localizing elearning content also:

Improves knowledge retention: Culturally relevant elearning programs translated into the target market language help ensure that employees absorb critical information, particularly about compliance and safety.
Improves employee retention: Organizations report a 25-60% increase in retention rates when elearning is available.
Improves inclusivity: Creates an environment where every team member feels valued and included.
Boosts competitive differentiation: Creates a highly skilled global team that gives your business a competitive advantage.
Creates a global culture: Training staff on company protocols, products, and services helps to instill a recognizable global company culture wherever they are located and helps employees feel like they belong.
Complies with country-specific regulations: Localizing elearning content involves creating content specific to each target market. Nowhere is this more important than in addressing the safety, regulatory, and legal compliance rules necessary for each location.
Increases brand equity and value: By investing in employee development, recognition, and rewards and delivering personalized, tailored client experiences, businesses can significantly reduce turnover rates, increase customer retention, and, ultimately, boost revenue and profit margins.

Services you’ll need to localize your elearning content

Now that you understand why localizing your elearning content can transform your workforce and even improve profitability, let’s look at the activities involved. Summary: it’s not just about translation, but it does start there.

Translation

Translation is the process of changing the source content into the language of each target audience. It is just the beginning of localizing an elearning course, representing the bare minimum necessary to improve effectiveness.

Localization

Localization is the act of making something local. Localizing an elearning course allows it to represent the culture of the target market, not only in the translation of the content but in the standards and traditions reflective of that market. It includes the following components:

Images: When imagery is used in localization, many cultural nuances must be considered. Images depicting people, animals, body parts, personal and professional relationships, and many other categories should be changed depending on the norms and preferences of the target culture.
Colors: Colors carry a lot of meaning and will change based on the target market and culture. For example, yellow can mean “happy” in the United States but denotes “mourning” in Mexico.
Symbols: Carrying meaning and intent, it’s important to recognize that some symbols may offend depending on the target market. An example is the Red Cross organization, which is known as the Red Crescent in Muslim countries for religious reasons.
Formatting: This includes cultural variations in time and date format, currency symbols, and reading direction. For example, Arabic and Hebrew are read right to left, whereas English is read left to right.
Technical considerations: During the localization process, technical considerations can include the user interface and internationalization of the elearning course platforms. It’s important to ensure that the user interface can handle both bidirectional languages (Hebrew and Arabic) and character-based languages (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean). Guaranteeing that elearning materials work flawlessly on the devices and platforms used by learners in each region ensures that no learner gets left behind due to technical problems.

Transcreation

Transcreation recreates a message, idea, or symbol within a target market to ensure the same semantic impact. It’s a creative translation required when content is nuanced, heavily branded, or emotional–these are cases where word-for-word translation won’t do.

Multilingual multimedia production

Multilingual multimedia production includes subtitling or voiceover considerations to ensure audio tracks are understood within each market.

Testing

Once localized, content undergoes comprehensive testing within the LMS or learning platform to make sure the course functions flawlessly across all components.

Components to localize in your elearning course

The localization of each elearning course will depend upon how the course is created and structured, but the basic items that must be localized include:

Text: Content, presenter notes, onscreen text, quizzes and answers
Images, graphics, and animations: Colors, layout, screen captures, slide transitions, and animated mouse cursor movements
Fonts: Fonts may need to be localized based on the language, including separate fonts for character-based and bi-directional languages.
Measurement units and formatting: Measurement units such as metric versus imperial, currency conversations, and time/date formats must all be localized to accurately reflect how they’re used in each target market.
Layout and user interface: Proper localization ensures accessibility and usability for each target market. Consider bi-directional and character-based languages or cultural interfaces for sex or religion.
Audio and video: Audio and video localization reflect the translation and interpretation of audio files to ensure proper understanding within each target market. Another important consideration is the voice and tone of any narration used.
Cultural references: If you refer to a song, place, news event, etc., in your course, then you need to replace it with a local and relevant example.
Cultural preferences: Your elearning courses need to properly reflect and respect the cultural values of each of your target markets. For example, a manager sitting at a coffee table with their peers in a hoodie might be overly casual for some global employees. It would be more fitting to share an image of a team in business casual clothing with the leader at the front of the table.

Mistakes to avoid when localizing elearning content

Achieving truly localized elearning content is tricky. There is a lot of complexity and nuance to making earning content appeal to employees all over the globe. Here are a few things to avoid:

Idioms and slang: It is best to eliminate idioms and slang from the source content. Idioms such as ‘touching base’ or ‘hit a home run’ do not carry the same meaning, if any, within each target market.
Abbreviations: Most abbreviations do not translate into other languages. Only the long form of each word or phrase should be used, regardless of industry.
Complex language or technical terminology: Simplified language is always best, as it ensures greater ease of understanding and retention.
Hard-coded text boxes: Text expansion and contraction within the translation process can create quality control issues if items such as text boxes are hard-coded in the source content.
Uneditable files: Using uneditable files during the localization and translation process means that those files will need to be recreated for each target language. Time-consuming and costly, this process increases room for error between the source and target languages.

How to manage risk in elearning course localization

There are several things you can do to help you manage risk in the localization of elearning content to make sure your elearning courses are effective within your target markets. Here are five things to consider to reduce your risk:

Involve your localization provider early: Involving your localization provider early in the development of your elearning courses can help eliminate costly errors.
Define your quality needs upfront with your localization provider: Each organization defines quality differently, so establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) with your localization provider will help you measure success.
Develop and provide a style guide: Developing a style guide for your elearning courses will ensure your localization provider understands your organization’s expectations for each market.
Develop and implement a glossary: Most localization providers treat a terminology glossary as a mandatory document that each linguist must use in translating course content.
Use technology: Technology use varies greatly between localization providers. Advances in AI and machine learning tools and technologies help eliminate repetitive tasks, reduce turnaround time, minimize risk, and lower terminology errors.
Partner with an experienced vendor: identify and engage a vendor with extensive elearning localization experience in the cultures and languages you are targeting,

Next steps for your global elearning program

Is your organization just starting on an elearning localization journey? Or are you part of a seasoned team looking for quality localization at a price that makes sense? Our team of experts is here to support you every step of the way.

At Acclaro, we’re committed to helping you navigate the complexities of localizing your elearning courses. We use the best technology, coupled with experience and knowledge, allowing you to focus on what matters most — empowering your learners everywhere.

Get started to learn more about how we can help your team transform your home-market elearning content to extend the benefits of localized content to your global workforce and drive improved profitability at the same time.